September 2008

Matrons Back

Jb’s back and doing his stuff after singing with Whitney for Mandela

Well what a complete waste of a day I’ve had.
I had to go into ‘ The Office’ to try and blag some essential equipment I need for a 1-day training course tomorrow.

Mine seems to have ‘vanished’ somewhere or other.

So I had to go into the place of hell, to see if I could blag some spares.

Spent the day in music with a new widget that works on the Mac that provides all the lyrics and artwork for my I Tunes library, adds another dimension to listening to the music.

Matron is back from her travels.

Welcome home.

Chakra is trying to get ‘ on the up;

Kurt M has cut off his mullet and is on the way up with his new family members.

HKH has become HugeInMumbai.

Glad you’re all well.

Everyone is prepping themselves for Old Boys already.

Good to see.

Brief update

Well gradually getting there on this Mac stuff, finally have an office on here of some sort, which finds me just dropping a brief note on here for you readers of blogs.

Finally finished my application for a new job, thanks to some sterling help from Spike & Windy.
Much appreciated.
Along with this project I have decided to overhaul the old DYRMS85 Class website and bring it up to date, so those readers who have photos and stuff hidden away in drawers, please feel free to mail me stuff, no matter how bad the haircuts.
Watch this space for a slicker less cluttered site.
Minimalism but clean and informative.
New member of the kite stables lost it’s cherry today, a Lime Green Pansh Spirit race kite, 5m, which plugs the gap nicely between the 2.5 Rage & 6.5m Pepper.
Initial teething problems of sorting put brake lines etc was followed by no wind or very little wind.
Hey ho us kiters are never happy.
All tomato crop has now been collected and processed away, so until next year, no growing progress photos.
Tweaked all my blueberry bushes into some nice shapes and hopefully it will encourage them to grow evenly.
Added three more raspberry bushes to my five first provided to me for nothing by my lovely web hostess and her hubby, I never realised they provide off shoots that pop up everywhere.
Delivered two trees, that I secretly loathed and eight strawberry plants to another to Mr & Mrs Dukie [yes both of them went there], her father was a teacher there. So they were very happy, it added to the other plants they had off me in the earlier part of the year. I was very jealous of their jalapeno’s which had done amazingly well outside of all places, whereas mine only provided some little seed capsules for sowing next year.
Home made cider doing well, the ASDA Cider is far dryer than the Lidl Variety, but both tasting scrumpy like..

Something from the archives

1983 Clappys House

Weekend Of Difference

Parasol Mushrooms

Wood Pigeon

Freshly Skinned Squirrel

Easy, Cider!

Easy Cider

Because the garden is running down ish , I will have to think of another job to entertain myself so I started this project.

Equipment:

1 One Gallon Demijohn (sterilised)
1 Bung with an air lock
4 One litre plastic bottles that can cope with pressurised liquid!

Ingredients:

One Gallon of apple juice (I’m using 5 one litre cartons)
Ale yeast (or other yeast, wine yeast may make the cider very dry, bread yeast could be tried)

Method

This is what I intend to do, feel free to add suggestions or try something else!:

1) Sterilise the demijohn. Add 4 litres of apple juice to start and half a teaspoon of yeast. This should give enough room for the initial fermentation. Add a bung with and air lock and leave somewhere warm.

2) After initial rapid fermentation, top up with more apple juice and leave with the bung and air lock to almost work its way out.

3) Bottle and leave somewhere warm to finish fermenting and then leave to settle for a couple of weeks.

4) Then drink!

Notes: Dead rats optional!

Also on the menu today

Geralds Tomato Sauce

Geralds Tomato Sauce

6 lbs Tomatoes
3 lbs Sugar
2 pints vinegar
1 lb sultanas [ I used mixed fruit with cranberries etc ]
1/2 lb garlic
2 oz ground ginger
1 oz red chilli
1 oz salt

MY variation changed the dried fruit fro whatever dried fruits and trail mixes i had in the cupboard and I used half a pound of lazy garlic and ginger paste from my local Nepalese shop. I could not be bothered with all chopping and peeling an wasting stuff.

And I used up some of my Scotch Bonnet Peppers instead of bland shop chilli.

Instructions .

1. Chop Toms

2. Mince garlic , chilli & dried fruit in blender until into a paste.

3. Boil Vinegar & Sugar.

4. Add ingredients and cook until reduced to a deep brown ketchup colour , bottle.

Ginally I made a fiery hot sauce only for the brave

Pirate Pepper Sauce.

6 oz Chilli [ 6 oz Scotch Bonnet chilli would be off the scale , so I used just 6 ]
6 oz Onion
4 oz Apple
2 tsp Mustard
150 ml vinegar

Instructions

1. Chop and mince onion and chilli together.

2. Sweat the mix off in a little oil , i used a blend of hemp and olive.

2. Add the chopped peeled and cored apple.

3. Add mustard & vinegar.

4. Reduce until nice paste , then smooth with blender and bottle.

He Who Thinks Confusion Drinks Confusion

Life summed up in three words , it goes on.

Days off , I had so much planned and failed to achieve any of my plans.

Go to the tip to see if I could liberate some old front forks of a couple of dead cycles , for yet another project.

watch this space , i look at at the clock it states 1324 and what have I acheived today nothing yet again.

Hello to my newest readers Kitty Kat & Little Willie.

Kit is a long standing chum , who I had not seen for eons , her sisters wedding in fact.

Both who I saw yesterday as it happens , I just had to get out and do some head clearance and also to collect some essential help from Kit’s bro in law.

Thanks Huxley & Steve for all your help to date.

It’s a bit of a ride into Woking , my old place of residence but the weather held out.

I popped into see Kit and established yet another wonderful contact , lovely fresh pears and cooking apples that if I’d been on my Xtracycle would no doubt have been able to fill both my Freeloaders, it was a tough work out on the legs on the way home along the old canal tow path.

But the goods were delivered to a some what happy Zebra Mum.

San Marzano 2 Harvest

San Marzano 2 Harvest

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